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Philip Rivers laughed a bunch, gesticulated as wildly as ever and generally appeared his usual happy, well-rested, confident and uber-optimistic self.

If this is the face of the franchise the day before training camp unofficially begins, well, maybe things will be all right after all.

Rivers doesn’t seem to have lost any sleep — sheets soaked in sweat as he awakens in a start from the nightmare of being crippled from his blind side, or frozen in the fear of a sleepless daze as he imagines himself repeatedly unable to find an open receiver.

Rivers doesn’t relax so much as he occasionally ceases moving — momentarily. But, as it were, he seemed legitimately and deeply at peace Sunday afternoon as he spoke while lounging — OK, fidgeting — on a patio just more than a deep pass away from his Santaluz home.

Today, he will join a few other veterans and (presumably) all but one of the team’s rookies at Chargers Park for the unofficial opening of training camp.

Rookies practice today through Wednesday, veterans report Thursday and the first full-squad practice is Friday morning.

Surprise! Rivers is pretty excited about it.

“I don’t know what could happen to make me not optimistic,” Rivers said with a laugh.

“Those are two key guys on our offense,” Rivers said. “… I don’t think there’s any way you can say we’re not better with them. We want to have them. But at the same time, can you still get it done without them? The answer is ‘Yes.’ ”

The already-really-was-but-now-officially-is “face of the franchise” knows he will be asked more in the coming weeks about the players who are gone and those who are missing than he is about the group that remains.

“It’s what I’d ask about too,” he said, meaning if he were a member of the media.

But he’s pretty close to being done talking about Jackson and McNeill until (he hopes) he can happily welcome them back. And he plans to lead by example in that area.

“We can only control what we can control,” Rivers said. “… The biggest thing that can be a negative in the next four weeks is if guys get caught up in talking about when Marcus or Vincent or (Shawne) Merriman is coming every day. It’s the only thing that can keep us from having a great training camp.”

As for the Chargers’ other well-documented attrition, Rivers sees possibility.

He has been wholly respectful the past five months when talking about the departures of Jamal Williams, Antonio Cromartie and, especially, LaDainian Tomlinson. However, Rivers spends little time dwelling on losses and is clearly intrigued by changes to the roster.

Through the course of a 70-minute conversation, he offered detailed, anecdotal explanations about why he is excited about the contributions he believes a number of his young, unproven teammates can make.

“People say we don’t know if these guys can do it,” Rivers said. “You’re right. We don’t know, but we’ve never asked them to do it.”

As an example, Rivers recalled 2006 when a rookie named Marcus McNeill was the unexpected starter at left tackle and the Chargers went 14-2.

The man who has worked the locker room laughing, teasing and talking football with his teammates since the day he arrived is also excited about what he sees as a new overall personality the Chargers will have.

“I can’t wait for this training camp,” he said. “There are lot of recognizable faces gone. We’re going to have new faces. I think there will be a distinct difference — not necessarily in a good or bad way. In a fun way. It’s going to be fun to see.”

More than anything, though, the theme Rivers sounded on Sunday was one of continuation and perseverance.

Rivers is the NFL’s highest-rated passer over the past 39 regular-season games — since his 11th start under coach Norv Turner. While he has never played in one — two injuries, one baby being born — he has been selected to three Pro Bowls. He is, for the time being and depending on how one does the accounting, one of the league’s three highest-paid quarterbacks.

Does it really need to be spelled out what he hasn’t accomplished?

He and everyone else knows there is no ring.

Devastated by the Chargers’ playoff loss to the New York Jets — their latest in what is piling up into a heap of January disappointment — he still recalls certain plays and winces.

“It’s (important) that’s gone,” he said. “I think it was good for the offseason, for motivation … We can’t dwell on it. We can gain from it.”

Rivers, like many in the organization, is hoping this is a process.

He has communicated with teammates throughout the spring and summer — an offseason program roundly considered the team’s most productive and enthusiastic in several years — that “this whole thing is one big journey.”

More than ever, Rivers hopes the Chargers, the only team to have made the divisional round of the playoffs each of the past four years, can someday be a mirror of the Indianapolis Colts.

There was a time Peyton Manning’s team was seen as playoff chokers — until in its fifth straight trip to the postseason the Colts finally won a Super Bowl after the 2006 season.

“We’re at a point now where guys have completely bought in,” Rivers said. “It’s because of all those tough times that allow you to get through them. That’s what it takes sometimes. It takes being in the low of lows, then seeing how the whole (team) gets through, and then you say, ‘This is us.’ We’ve been through the test of time. There’s nothing more we can do. From an injury standpoint, playoff losses, 4-8 in the regular season, there is nothing this team has not seen.

“To win one time, we’ll look back and people won’t say, ‘Yeah, but you lost in ’06. No, they’ll say, ‘You won the Super Bowl.’ It’s all part of the grind to get there.”